FOUL RIDING AND FOUL PLAY 129 



through a misunderstanding ; Bill believing that Dick 

 had been finding fault with a horse the other was trying 

 to sell. I will give the anecdote in Dick's own graphic 

 phraseology : — 



" Bill Wright, of Uppingham, was a good-hearted chap, 

 but given to very vulgar language. Bill and me were 

 always very partikler intimate — boys together in the racing- 

 stables. We once quarrelled, out hunting with Lord 

 Lonsdale. If we didn't get to horse-whipping each other! 

 — we did, indeed ! — for three miles straight across country, 

 cut for cut. It was from Preston Gorse in the Prior's 

 Coppice country. All the gentlemen shouted, ' Well done, 

 Dick!' 'Well done. Bill ! ' It pleased them uncommonly. 

 We took our fences reg'lar all the time. If he was first 

 over, he stopped for me. If I'd ha' fell, he'd have jumped 

 on me, and, blame me, if I wouldn't ha' jumped smack on 

 top of him. We fought back hand, or any way we could 

 cut. Dal ! I was as strong as an elephant then. We pulled 

 our horses slap bang against each other. He gives me such 

 tinglers on the back and shoulders, but I fetches him a clip 

 with the hock end of my whip on the side of his head — 

 such a settler — and gives him a black eye. 



"Then I says, 'Bill, will you have any more, 'cos I'm 

 ready prepared for you ? ' But he'd got his dose for that 

 day. Six weeks after that. Reeves, the landlord of the 

 Falcon, at Uppingham, says to me, ' What's this between 

 you and Bill ? I'll stand a bottle of wine to see you make 

 it up. Let's send for him.' ' Well,' I says, ' I don't 

 malice him if he don't malice me.' So he comes, and 

 though we was rather awkward at first, after we'd had a 

 glass we shook hands and cleared up our differences, and 

 after that we was like brothers. Lord bless you, if you 

 want to like a man thorough, there's nothing like fighting 

 him first." 



